


panic

by aerynlallaboso



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, Nohara Rin (mentioned), also brief mentions of death/violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-17
Updated: 2014-09-17
Packaged: 2018-02-17 18:30:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2319188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aerynlallaboso/pseuds/aerynlallaboso
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Senpai," Tenzo says urgently, straining his eyes and ears to find the source and direction of the noise. He looks to Kakashi, who has the best ears in the entire corps, and realises with a start that Kakashi was the one who made the noise - he's still making it, an open-mouthed sob through the fabric of his mask.</p><p>(Kakashi has a nightmare coming home from a mission.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	panic

Leaves drown out the sunset, orange and pink streaks across the sky which vanish far too quickly.

They weren't supposed to be gone this long, Tenzo worries. It was supposed to be a few hours. He shifts his shoulders and his pack with them to a more comfortable position as he runs, glancing at Kakashi to make sure he's keeping pace.

A two hour journey, a hastily prepared ambush sprung and their targets eliminated, and then the return trip to the Leaf: that was the plan. A caravan of civilians, not even shinobi, which was why they'd gone as a two-man squad.

His senpai is breathing hard; Tenzo can hear the heavy inhale-exhale from here.

One of the civilians was a girl, maybe thirteen or fourteen. Kakashi had killed her second, chidori through the heart, and stood there with his hand through her torso while Tenzo dealt with the rest of them.

"Tenzo."

He catches himself on the edge of a tree branch, balancing on tiptoes an instant from launching into the air again. "Yes, senpai?"

"It's getting dark. And your injury-"

"It's nothing, senpai." Barely a scratch, sustained from one of the caravan guards while Kakashi was frozen in reverie, the girl's short brown hair waving in the wind.

"We'll stop for a while," Kakashi says, in a tone that brooks no argument, so Tenzo turns his halted momentum into a flip backwards to the ground. Kakashi follows him down, landing lightly and resting his pack against the tree with Tenzo's.

The last remnants of the sunset slip beneath the horizon. Tenzo takes first watch; Kakashi takes off his ANBU mask and dozes under the trees.

Both of his masks were on when he killed the girl, but Tenzo had felt, watching him stand there out of the corner of his eye, that all of the metaphorical, emotion-concealing masks the man wore constantly had crumbled to dust for a few minutes. Kakashi of the Sharingan, stopped cold.

He contemplates quietly what he might have been able to see on Kakashi's face if there weren't layers of porcelain and cloth covering it, and then he hears a noise, a muffled cry.

"Senpai," Tenzo says urgently, straining his eyes and ears to find the source and direction of the noise. He looks to Kakashi, who has the best ears in the entire corps, and realises with a start that Kakashi was the one who made the noise - he's still making it, an open-mouthed sob through the fabric of his mask.

Kakashi can't be fully awake, he realises quickly, taking in his unfocused right eye and thoroughly undisciplined posture.

There's another sob, which makes Tenzo want to cover his ears and cry along with it. He's _never_ seen him like this, not his team captain, not his senpai. Kakashi is pressing up against the tree he was sleeping beneath before, clutching his hand and rubbing at it with the other, chanting something under his breath.

Tenzo listens, and he can hear it - a name, repeated over and over again - "Rin, Rin, Rin, Rin, Rin" - Kakashi's voice growing hoarser with each repetition. "Senpai," he says, his own voice trembling. "It's just a dream, senpai."

He reaches over, thinking wildly to stop the rubbing before Kakashi's reddening skin starts coming off from the pressure, and Kakashi grabs his wrist, staring at him with wide but unseeing eyes. "Rin?" he says, low and anguished.

"No," Tenzo starts to say, horrified, but there are tears slipping from Kakashi's eyes. He clutches at Tenzo's hair tucked behind his faceguard - his chin-length brown hair, the same shade and length as the girl that Kakashi had killed today and the one he had killed years ago - and babbles something at him.

"Senpai, it's Tenzo," Tenzo says, trying to sound calm and reassuring and in control around the lump in his throat. Kakashi doesn't seem to hear him. "Senpai," he says again desperately.

His faceguard is coming loose from Kakashi's shaking hands; his hair is wet with tears.

" _Kakashi_ ," Tenzo says, and his voice trips down a set of stairs and comes out as a shockingly deep plea.

Kakashi stops. He draws back, dark right eye blinking swiftly into an approximation of its usual sharpness, but there's a terrifyingly unguarded whirlpool of emotion swirling in it still. "Tenzo?"

Tenzo takes a huge, shaky breath.

"I'm sorry," Kakashi says, swallowing. There are tear tracks on his dark mask. "I - I must have had a nightmare - I haven't had one in years."

He sounds so unlike the Kakashi Hatake Tenzo respects and admires and maybe sort-of knows, and it scares the hell out of him. "The girl?" he guesses, though he doesn't expect Kakashi to answer.

To his relief, his expectation is met, Kakashi's face closing up and tightening into the smooth emotionless mask he wears under the physical ones. "I'll take watch for the next hour."

Tenzo nods. "Kakashi-senpai," he says - his voice is back to its normal barely-fifteen-year-old high pitch - and then hesitates when Kakashi looks at him, waiting for him to say whatever he's going to say. "I'm not Rin, but I - I'm here. If you have another nightmare."

The mask loosens. "Thank you, Tenzo."


End file.
